Final Word on "Global Warming"
 

In the Blog "http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/02/m-global_warming_skeptic_prof_lindzen_testifies_before_house_of_commons.html", they say:

His presentation: a 58-page PDF, here is titled:

outlines the science debunking the whole climate change issue. As a graduate of MIT (ScD, 69) and Associate Professor there from '75 to '84, I can testify to the quality of their Meteorology program of which Prof. Lindzen is Head. I've always been a denier, and I'm glad to read this.

Blah blah blah...

Oh, my! You're letting facts get in the way of the liberal agenda. That might not sit well..... here anyway.

I'm not a neocon, AEH; I'm actually rather moderate. But I am a trained engineer -- I believe in data; not guesses.

The global warming crowd lost me when they changed the mantra from "global warming" to "climate change." Only one reason to do that, right? That's not to say I don't strongly support all efforts to clean up our air and environment; I do support that effort.

I'm just not sure I have a lot of faith in the popular "crisis of the moment" the government keeps throwing at us. They beat the smokers to death and are now going after the obese children... an epidemic they say. Take the coke and candy machines out of schools and public places, ban pizza, prosecute the parents, and on and on.

I've been looking for that epidemic every day when I pick the little one up from school and watch dozens of kids line up for their ride. Every once in a great while I see an obese child, and maybe a couple more I would consider chubby (mild obesity), but by and large the kids look quite healthy to me.... no different from 40 years ago. And this school serves pizza two days a week, chicken nuggets two more, hot dogs the other day and has coke and candy machines. There ain't no stinkin' obesity epidemic I can see. One major cause of the epidemic, and this one really gets me, is "food is too cheap." Raise the price of food, that will solve the problem. Yeah, right.

Well, with the cost of fuel going up by the day, I guess we'll find out soon enough! IMO, the 'law-makers'are on a feeding frenzy, attempting to micro-manage every aspect of our lives. Of course that's what happens when government is in charge of 'Health-Care.' Total control. Which was probably the intent from the beginning.

I love this quote in a local paper in Halifax by Sir Graham Day, a very successful business man:

This seems to be a problem everywhere; governments at all levels, unable to deal with the major problems their constituencies face -- jobs, finances, taxes, etc., dabble instead in the details of a few special-interest "hot buttons" to be seen to be doing something. Greece's economy is in shambles, for example, because they are severely over-regulated and grossly over-governed by far too many bureaucrats; there's no room to maneuver. Here, smoking bans, as just one instance, have become ridiculous with hospital patients pushing their kelly poles and IVs out to the street down a long driveway because they can't smoke on hospital grounds. That's got to be good for their health.

Special interest groups are all the same; there's never enough, every move falls short, more must be done. MADD pushes draconian alcohol limits for drivers, kids with one joint in their pocket end up with a criminal record, local doctors lobby for and get laws requiring a helmet to go skiing even though research shows that most skiing injuries do not involve the head and there's no proof that I wool cap provides any less protection. "Environmentally sensitive" folks prevent us from applying weed control to our lawns, call for scent-free areas in work places, etc. In the name of security our privacy is invaded left and right. The FBI boasts of the plots they've thwarted when a little digging always reveals that they set the whole thing up themselves. Loony toons.

Gore will not be remembered fondly as time goes on. His legacy was simply a moral panic. Recall the book many years ago by Rachel Carson, author of "Silent Spring". That initiative led to the world-wide ban on DDT. Now think about the 20 million kids in Africa who have died of insect borne diseases since then.

In fact, this Prof didn't "appear before the House of Commons Committee" or "provide testimony to Parliament". He held his own seminar, using one of the committee rooms as the venue, at the invitation of one backbench MP. Members can hire out the rooms for all sorts of meetings, some of them quite fruity. The House of Commons has no intention of "repealing the climate change act" -- that's the name of a lobbying group. And many things may have decimated the British economy, but the Climate Change Act (which is pretty inconsequential) is not in the top twenty. So I would suggest that the blog you post to has its own "agenda", and is playing fast and loose with the facts.

As a scientist with that pedigree, I'm surprised to hear you say that you need to "deny" anything. You many not agree with the interpretation of the data, but that's different.

But I'm intrigued. Are you saying you don't believe there is any climate change, or that there is, but you don't believe that man is responsible in any way for it? What evidence would you need to convince you that man is causing changes to the climate? (Preferably not irreversible ones!) Or do you just believe that whatever changes happen, we'll all be fine and dandy?

Personally, I've seen local environmental changes caused by local human activity, so I figure it would be churlish to assume that we're not causing any on the larger scale, given the scale of our activity.

Is anyone against reducing pollution? Does anyone believe that throwing away our spent goods into landfill is an optimum long-term solution? Does anyone believe that oil (and other mineral energy sources, including uranium) are not finite? And if not, then shouldn't we do something about these things?

I have seen data which shows that rising temperatures in the Atlantic are affecting the salinity which is changing the underwater 'feedback' loop for the Gulf Stream's cycle. If man is contributing to this, I think we should do what we can to reduce the human contribution, as a healthy Gulf Stream is pretty important to us in the UK, at the least.

One of my favourite cartoons on the subject has the punchline "You mean, we might have improved the planet for nothing?"

Funny how "liberals" (whoever they are) have "an agenda". But Republicans/Conservatives/whatever don't have their own agenda? And facts are only fact when they agree with you? When they suggest the opposite, they're not facts?

I don't see why climate change needs to be a political issue -- and dare I say that outside the US, it mostly isn't.


This report may be many things, but the final word, it is not.

The idea that a bunch of climate scientists (and no doubt journalists, politicians, other academics and assorted pinkos) all held a meeting and said "how can we make ourselves really important and scare the bejeezus out of everyone -- as part of some hidden, ulterior motive?" is just farcical. I'm sure that those scientists who "believe" (wrong word) that climate change is real are doing so because they really do think it's happening and it needs sorting. Not for any nefarious reasons or as part of some "cabal" with evil intent.

The real problem with the whole "climate change"/"global warming" debate (let's call it to be kind) is that like so many things today it has become severely polarized. Advocates of both sides ("we're all gonna die"/"nothing to see here, move on") think nothing of cherry picking their data and even lying through their teeth while the vast majority choose sides on the basis of emotion and to hell with the facts which they don't understand anyway.

Elegantly put, benwiggy -- I agree. I don't really deny anything as you point out -- I simply don't agree that the meager data available is either understood by those who gather it, or correctly extrapolated. In this hyper-commercial world we live in today there is an ever-growing group of industries whose livelihood depends on "sustainable development". They, quite obviously, fan the flames whenever they can to convince governments and the public of the need for this and of the dire consequences of neglecting this initiative; particularly their variety.

I am indeed saying that over a fairly substantial time frame our climate will remain roughly as it is whether we choose to hover in dark caves by the light of candles or continue to live as we do now. In the long haul, with few exceptions, solar energy and wind power will not compete with fossil fuel as our principal source of energy, nor will it matter. That's not to say that I believe pollution is a good thing, it is obviously not.

So have I, but for the most part these changes -- things like the acidification of lakes and streams due to high-sulpher fuels burned in the US are being remediated by pollution controls, as are automobile emissions for examples.

I've mentioned pollution. Halifax recycles over 50% of its solid waste and no longer pollutes the second largest natural harbor in North America. I could nit-pick some of the details, but in general that's only good planning.

I've underlined the key sentence above. Not proven.

I have to say I'm surprised that you think there is no data to support the hypothesis that the climate is changing. Most of the debate (as I understand it) has accepted that change is occurring, but focuses on whether man is responsible for it, or whether the change is within some long-term cyclical behaviour rather than just moving in one direction toward an extreme.

However, when otherwise rational people become entrenched in fixed, dogmatic, polarised positions, each with data to back up their claim, I usually find it wiser to assume that the truth is somewhere between the two.

The trouble with predictions in this field is that really there is no certainty. The case for CC will only be proved when something undesirable happens to the climate that cannot be ignored. The anti-CC group would maintain that attempts to combat CC are the same as appeasing the god in the volcano.

In Hungary, there is an old saying that "weather forecasters and politicians tell lies".

I agree entirely that the climate is changing -- it always has. It's a matter of time scale, however, and I do agree that the major issue is whether it's man-made or not.

As do I.

The invasion of extreme politics makes it impossible to read the tea leaves and there's an element of "the sky is falling". I always wonder "Where's the money? That'll be who's pushing hardest. To companies who sell something to burn, it's "no problem". To companies that sell windmills, it's "Oh my God, we're doomed".

And here's an article in ArsTechnica that proves that point: Americans Listening to Politicians More than Climate Scientists, but then aren't climate scientists weather forecasters? Just a matter of time scale, isn't it?

Of course the real problem is that people shouldn't be listening to politicians at all. It should be the other way around.

agree with benwiggy here.

and post #1 contains more politics than NovaScotian is perhaps aware of.

what is the pro/con **ratio** of scientific thought about all this?

[one pdf does not a "final word" make]

--

edit/ anyway, what is the endgame here? you want to give companies the right to pollute the air as much as they please? are you nuts? how about the water supply? when laws get passed, they seldom perfectly deal with such issues at large... making rivers, lakes, etc., into fair game as well.

I think I've made it clear that I don't "want to give companies the right to pollute the air as much as they please". What I've been saying is that the case for a draconian response to "global warming" has definitely not been made.

The Republican Brain: Why Even Educated Conservatives Deny Science -- and Reality

For those too lazy to click the link, a few choice quotes:

Tell the people of the Maldives that it isn't happening. Their islands may well be under water not long from now.

Where we (and perhaps the two sides of this controversy) differ is in the definition of "draconian".
Would you consider taxing gasoline at a rate of 100% (doubling the price of gas) and using the revenues to pursue energy alternatives a draconian response? I wouldn't.

I am so tired of seeing people wrangle over the science as though it were a political issue. So just for a moment, let's scr@w the science and face the politics squarely. No one thinks that what we are doing to the environment is healthy, but no one wants to get stuck with the responsibility for cleaning it up. It's easier - and far more profitable - to continue doing what one knows is wrong while the lawyers and politicians drag out the discussion endlessly than to stand up and do the right thing because you know it's the right thing. All this haggling about the science is lawyerese: an endless stream of diversions and denials in the hope that everyone on all sides will be long dead before anything reaches an actionable stage. Then the next generation can point their fingers at the last generations and say "Well, they were stupid, but the mistakes they made aren't our fault, so we can't be responsible for fixing it." This is exactly what the tobacco industry did, it's exactly what the financial industry has done several times (the S&L crisis, the Enron scandal, the housing/market crash), so there's no sense pretending it's not happening with the climate change issue.

I can respect it when people are intelligently amoral, but this type of amorality is merely stupid and lazy; mindless greed rather than mindful greed.

Waiting for conclusive science in this particular case is a bit like waiting until you get shot before deciding whether guns are dangerous. Yes, a head wound would be really good evidence that guns are trouble, just as a bullet bouncing harmlessly off your skull would be really good evidence that they are not; should we assume the latter keep on pulling that trigger? Russian Roulette for fun and profit…

NovaScotia, I still would be interested to know: what proof would you need to convince you that man's CO2 output was affecting the atmosphere? (Assuming that correlation does not imply causation!)

Perhaps we should keep in mind what happened last time living organisms caused a huge change in the Earth's atmosphere. This was when photosynthesizing plants significantly reduced the levels of carbon dioxide, dramatically increased the levels of atmospheric oxygen and resulted in the creation of the protective ozone layer. Of course, all this made possible the evolution of air breathing animals.

Thanks plants.

Wonder what sort of life-form will be thanking us?

Is there climate change? Of course. How much is directly caused by humans? No one knows.
Should mankind strive to keep the air pure, oceans clean, earth uncontaminated? Of course!
Are all the myriad rules and regulations written strictly by unbiased, clear-thinking individuals
and agencies who have only goodness in their hearts. Of course not, and therein lies the problem.
Agendas unrelated to climate using climate to further goals unrelated to climate.
And those who dare question such agendas are immediately placed on the defensive
by the question: "Then can I assume you are against clean air and polar bears and don't care if
the rivers catch fire?" No one is allowed to say that there has to be some medium ground between
'saving the environment' and making it impossible for mankind to exist. That perhaps the minnows
in the Sacramento river are not as important as the livelihood of farmers in the Salinas Valley
who were growing food for mankind, for example.
This link below helps explain how so-called 'scientific data' can just be wrong. And how,
once that erroneous data is entered into the system, it never goes away.
And most of the erroneous raw data referred to here is due to ignorance and incompetence.
Add in the various political agendas by any number of politicians and governments all over the
world, some of whom could not give a royal hoot about the environment but are using 'green'
to further their own ambitions, often to the detriment of America and you get, at best, a very
corrupted version of what is often presented as "How can you possibly be against 'clean air?'
If your mind is open to both sides, take the time to call up the link. It's not a political link.
It's factual data, complete with pictures.

<http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf>

The official record of temperatures in the continental United States comes from a network of 1,221 climate-monitoring stations overseen by the National Weather Service, a
department of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Until now, no one had ever conducted a comprehensive review of the quality of the measurement environment of those stations.
By Anthony Watts SurfaceStations.org
During the past few years I recruited a team of more than 650 volunteers to visually inspect and photographically document more than 860 of these temperature stations. We were shocked by what we found.
We found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb
and radiate heat. We found 68 stations located at wastewater treatment plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be higher than in surrounding areas.
In fact, we found that 89 percent of the stations – nearly 9 of every 10 – fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or more away
from an artificial heating or radiating/ reflecting heat source.
In other words, 9 of every 10 stations are likely reporting higher or rising temperatures because they are badly sited.
It gets worse. We observed that changes in the technology of temperature stations over time also has caused them to report a false warming trend. We found major gaps in the data record that were filled in
with data from nearby sites, a practice that propagates and compounds errors. We found that adjustments to the data by both NOAA and another government agency, NASA, cause recent temperatures to look even higher.
The conclusion is inescapable: The U.S. temperature record is unreliable.
The errors in the record exceed by a wide margin the purported rise in temperature of 0.7o C (about 1.2o F) during the twentieth century. Consequently, this record should not be cited as evidence of any trend
in temperature that may have occurred across the U.S. during the past century. Since the U.S. record is thought to be “the best in the world,” it follows.........

If I believed that any Canadian government would, in fact, use the revenues to pursue energy alternatives, I'd agree with you Hayne. Instead, however, those new tax revenues would go into the general account to be pissed away as governments always do without accountability. Nova Scotia has the highest gasoline taxes in Canada and theoretically a chunk of those is for highway maintenance and yet our highways, streets and bridges are crumbling.

I know that correlation does not imply causation. I know that the earth is in a warming cycle too; one of many through its history. What I don't see is one agreed-upon model for the effects of CO2 on what amount to long term global trends. The atmosphere is simply too complex so far for climate modelers and the fact that reputable scientists disagree on all of them says that modern models are weak. All of the draconian (Gore camp) predictions have been proven wrong. All of the nay sayers have vested interests. At some point it will be clear, but as Wendell (post #21) points out, even the data are flawed.